


Kill the Ranger

by ZadieWrites



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: 19th Century, Abused Mordred, Abusive Morgana, Alternate Universe - Western, Angst, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Evil Morgana (Merlin), Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Just nonstop, Major Character Death and I MEAN Major Character Death, Morgana is a very very bad mother, Multi, Period Typical Religion, Physical Abuse, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, This fic is a Bad Time, Unhappy Ending, Violence, a lot of people die, only Merlin is left alive, yes they’re cowboys. Sad cowboys.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:20:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 17,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28658613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZadieWrites/pseuds/ZadieWrites
Summary: Arthur and Merlin, two rangers roaming the desert in the mid 1800s, couldn’t possibly have predicted what they were getting into when they were lured into the town of Camlann, run by one Madam Le Fay, and her sheriff, none other than her own son, Mordred, who has been groomed to bring about the death of his uncle since he was born.Arthur finds himself dragged into a feud a long time coming when he unknowingly puts a bullet in the back of the woman Mordred loves.Whatever happens now, Merlin realizes as he’s caught in the middle of all this, someone is going to die.
Relationships: Kara/Mordred (Merlin), Merlin & Morgana (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Mordred & Morgana (Merlin), Morgana & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Kudos: 7





	1. Rode a Stranger One Fine Day

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is my baby, I’ve been working on it for a long time and I’m so proud to bring it to you today. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
> 
> Also! This was made possible by my awesome beta lovelyal! ( https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyal/pseuds/lovelyal )

It was deadly quiet on the desert plains this afternoon, the only sound being the rhythmic beat of eight hooves as the two rangers rode across them. The sky was slowly turning from blue to orange . . . soon it would fade to a hazy purple and the temperature would drop dramatically. 

A row of dead trees was slowly approaching on the horizon, which was certainly . . . unusual. 

Amidst the silence, a cry of distress could be heard. It sounded like a woman. Arthur halted his horse and held up his hand to signal his companion to halt his as well. The two sat not moving a muscle for a moment. 

Then, a figure came stumbling behind a hill and collapsed onto a road. It was a young woman, no older than twenty, but her small frame and fresh features gave Arthur the impression she was closer to sixteen. She wore a simple brown dress which had been roughly torn, the jagged flap of loose fabric hanging to the side, exposing the filthy corset beneath. Her mousy brown hair was slipping out of a bun in dusty strands.

Arthur dismounted, Merlin quickly following suit, and went to the woman. He gently put a hand on her bony shoulder, and it became clear how malnourished the poor child was. 

“Are you alright?” he questioned, his brow furrowing. 

“My wagon was attacked and burned-I think I’m the only one who survived! But I’m not far from my town-could you come with me there? I’m afraid to travel alone.” She said, stammering, her breaths short and gulping. 

“Of course-your dress is torn, did someone try to . . .” Arthur observed. 

“N-no, thankfully, I don’t think that’s what they were after. I just caught it on something but your concern is touching, sir . . .”

“The name’s Pendragon. You can call me Arthur. This is Merlin.” 

“My name’s Kara,” she informed them, shakily. 

He nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. I can ride you home if you tell me where to go.” 

And so he did. He pulled her small, frail-looking body onto his horse behind him, her arms wrapping around his waist tightly. She led him through the thick wall of trees, which were covered in sheets of peeling white bark, positively blinding in the sun. On the sand below, there lie crumbly brown leaves that would crunch when stepped on. They didn’t fit in with any sort of desert agriculture Arthur was familiar with, and he’d been a ranger for thirteen years. 

As the trees began to clear Arthur heard the distant buzz of conversation, the clop of hooves, the rattling of wagon wheels, and the smell of food like bread and meat filled the atmosphere. The tree wall faded into an expanse of sand, that lowered into a basin of land, and Arthur saw the source of the commotion: a little town, which appeared at this distance as nothing more than a collection of dark blocks.

He rode downward until he came to a wooden sign that said in fading white letters, stark against its black painted surface, “Welcome to Camlann, Stay as Long as You’d Like, Provided You’re Civil!”

Kara dismounted before Arthur fully realized she was gone and ran past the sign into town. 

Arthur glanced back at Merlin, who was expressing his skepticism about this whole situation through his dark blue eyes.

“You got another one of those funny feelings about this?” Arthur guessed. 

“. . . a few, yeah. You could say that.”

“Well, this could be the first town we find for miles . . . I don’t really wanna sleep on the dirt again, especially in unknown territory.” 

“I know, but this doesn’t feel the slightest bit strange to you?” 

“It does. Feels more than the slightest bit. But, hey, we returned the girl to them, her family might be grateful. Might be rude to ride off before they can express that. And look,” he looked at Merlin. “If anything happens, we’ll turn back. I promise.” 

“. . . alright. Fine.”

They slowly rode into town. The paint on the houses was faded but colorful, the streets a rainbow of pastel, despite the fact some had honest-to-God bulletholes in their walls and Arthur saw several houses with no windows, or broken ones. There were a few apartment buildings which looked to be in particularly poor shape. In the center of the town stood a chapel with a red door. A scrawny dog with matted, yellow fur ran past them in the road. 

“You’ll get stepped on, don’t be dumb!” Arthur told the dog, letting those be the first words this town heard him say.

On stout legs, a small child ran off the porch of one of the houses and called the dog over. The dog ran to them, giving Arthur and Merlin a glance behind. 

A dark figure was approaching them in the distance, from behind the church. Arthur once again halted the horses, allowing them to approach. 

As it got closer, he saw it was a young man, maybe the same age as the girl from earlier, but may have been younger. Arthur would have guessed fifteen from his round face but this was contradicted by the badge on his chest. The youth had haunting blue eyes and was dressed in all black, from his hat to his boots, to the iron on his belt. Arthur warily put a hand closer to his own pistol. 

“Gentlemen, I’m gonna have to ask you to dismount.” the stranger told them, putting a hand on his head, re-positioning his hat, which partially hid a head of loose, black curls. 

“I must say, I got no problem with complying but, if you’re really a lawman, you’re the youngest lawman I ever did see.” remarked Arthur, dismounting, and gesturing for Merlin to do the same. 

“I’m actually the sheriff here. And I’m eighteen.” the youth said, in a firmer tone. 

“Well then, sheriff, what seems to be the problem?” replied Arthur, though privately he thought this town must be pretty desperate to have someone who was still basically a child as their sheriff. 

“No problem. Madam Le Fay wants to see you. She greets all strangers to Camlann.” 

“. . . alright.” Arthur hesitantly agreed to these terms.

“And . . . tie your horses please. You can trust no one will steal them.” 

“. . . I’m not sure I trust your word, kid.” 

The sheriff’s hand went to his gun, but before he could whip it out, a deep, feminine voice spoke with strong diction and a . . . strange Irish accent. 

“That’ll do, Mordred.” The voice belonged to a shockingly beautiful woman with long hair, the same ebony curls as the boy. She wore a dark purple dress with a glittering black bodice and lace sleeves. 

“I’m Madam Le Fay. I apologize for my son’s temper, he’s still learning. Our old sheriff . . . died unexpectedly, the poor boy had to tak,over,.” she informed them. 

“I suppose it’s not too unusual, I became a ranger when I was sixteen.” 

“You’re a ranger? Both of you?” 

“That’s right, ma’am.” Merlin responded.


	2. Didn’t Have Too Much to Say

Madam Le Fay brought the two into her office. Her house was on the edge of town, and it was a proud thing, impressive in size and imposing in nature, with its obsidian walls that were debatably darker than its tall shadow.

Outside the window behind her desk, one could see it was getting dark.

“I’m of course grateful to you two for helping the girl,” she told them as she poured the rangers each a drink. 

“The hopeless creature is prone to getting a bit lost. This wasn’t the first time a stranger had to help her . . . I keep telling her, ‘Kara, one day, my dear, you will not be able to find a good samaritan’. Yet she keeps doing so. I think it’s something about her doe eyes . . . my son adores the girl. I can’t imagine why but I’m in your debt because he’d be devastated if anything happened to her.” The woman had a soft, lilting way of speaking. 

“Your accent . . . you’re an Irishwoman?” 

“I am. On my mother’s side. Haven’t been in Ireland in many, many years but that is where I hail from.”

There was a pause between the three of them before Le Fay sat down behind her desk. 

“Feel free to stay as long as you’d like, boys. Rangers are always welcome here, provided they’re well-intentioned. You both seem well-intentioned enough,” she chuckled. 

“We certainly like to think of ourselves that way . . .” Merlin said, scanning the woman up and down with his stormy-colored eyes. 

_______________________________________

Silvery moonlight filtered through the holes in the worn roof of the barn as a distant owl screeched. The musty smell of hay filled the room and the old gelding in the corner stall chuffed and stomped in its sleep. Kara’s unbound hair, the color of cinnamon, was soft against Mordred’s hand as she laid on his chest. 

They were lying together in the hay loft, Mordred on his back and staring up at the stars through the holes, and Kara laying against him, her bosom pressed up against his ribcage. 

Her weight on him was comforting.

“Are you okay after what my mother had you do today?” he asked her. 

She yawned and nestled further into his half-buttoned shirt-neither of them were particularly decent at this time, they’d just finished . . . having their way with one another. They didn’t usually take off their clothes during such an activity, as this was their primary spot to do so and the hay wouldn’t be comfortable. 

“Your concern is awful touching, baby. I’m alright now,” she assured him.

“One day you won’t have to do these things to earn your place anymore. When you’re my wife no one’ll dare ask you for a damn thing.”

She sat up a bit resting his chin on his chest and looking at him. “Mordred, we’ve talked about this. Your mother would never allow it.”

“I don’t care . . .” Mordred softly breathed, as he looked into her midnight blue eyes. “My mother’s going to have to change. I love you no matter what.” 

“Well, we couldn’t get married here,” reasoned Kara, sensible as ever. 

“Where do you wanna get married?”

“Somewhere nobody knows our names . . . that we can get lost in. Someplace that’s not fit for starting a family but is instead fit for having reckless fun. Someplace we can live out the foolish youth that was stolen from you. Someplace like London or New Orleans or Paris.”

“Then I’ll take you to all those places.”

She gave him a sad little smile. “How are you gonna leave here?”

“After I’m finished this last thing for my mother, after I kill the ranger, we’ll just run away.”

“But won’t you miss her?”

He looked up at the ceiling again. “Well . . . yes. But at the end of it all, if she doesn’t support who I love . . . it’s a sacrifice I have to make.”

“. . . I love you, Mordred.” she whispered.

“I love you too, Kara.”

_______________________________________

“I told you you couldn’t see that girl,” Mordred heard his mother say in the darkness as he entered their home.

Mordred put aside all other questions about how she knew about the barn. His mother had a way of knowing things that went on in this town. 

“I can’t stop seeing her, Mama . . . I love her.” He replied, looking up.

The room filled with a soft light as Morgana lit an oil lamp. 

“You don’t know anything about love,” she told him in an assuring tone.

“And you do?” 

“Excuse me?” Her gaze sharpened.

He felt his heartbeat speed up as he told her, “Maybe it’s not that I don’t understand love, maybe it’s that you don’t. Maybe you want me to repress my feelings because you’ve . . . never felt like this before.” 

Mordred waited for the back of her hand to crack across his cheek but that’s not what happened. She reached out to touch the side of his head and he flinched. 

“Darling, I would only ever want the best for you. You are young and so you feel things very strongly. But I know this won’t end well for you.”

“Well, maybe it won’t. But I’ll . . . probably just be happy it happened at all.”

She sighed. “Then you leave me no choice. Come with me, I want you to do something.” 

His mother led him outside the house, holding an unlit torch, down a familiar, little-known road littered with dried up and dusty desert flora. After walking a while they stood in front of a large, poorly maintained barn, with holes in the roof and not a paint chip left in sight. Mordred and Kara’s barn.

Mordred felt a sense of anxiety begin to rise in him as she handed him the dead torch. 

He’d begun to realize what they were here to do and he suddenly panicked. 

“Mama, I can’t-Obediah’s in there!” He protested.

She raised a dark eyebrow. “Who?”

“The horse! Please let me save him first!” 

Morgana looked at him for a moment, then back at the barn. “. . . very well.”

Mordred dropped the torch on the ground and darted inside the building. “Obediah?” He called, quietly.

There was a soft snuffle that could be heard in the night in response. Mordred smiled and went to the back stall. The elderly equine was the only remaining animal in this barn, and if it weren’t for Kara and Mordred, the poor neglected thing would probably be dead by now. It belonged to an outlaw who had long since been killed . . . By Mordred himself. 

He took care of his horse as some small, apologetic gesture.

“Hey, old boy.” He said as he reached out a hand to pet Obediah.

The horse was once a proud, creamy tan with only a few speckles of white here and there, but as the years went on Mordred had watched as its muzzle became whiter and whiter. 

The muzzle in question was soft and warm as he pushed into Mordred’s hand. He pet him for a moment, before grabbing the bridle and lead. 

The horse’s hooves clopped steadily against the ground as he followed Mordred’s close lead. The gelding had no idea his home was about to be destroyed. 

After the sheriff led the horse outside, knowing he didn’t have to tie him, Morgana had already lit the torch. Mordred looked her in her blue eyes with a sorrowful, but resigned expression as he gripped Obediah’s lead. 

Releasing the lead, he took the torch from her outstretched hand, the fire crackling angrily and flickering, here and there in the breeze, fickle as a fairy. 

“You know what I ask of you.” She told him in a voice that was coldly toneless.

He nodded slowly, walking up to the barn. He stood in front of it for a moment. They were in a drier autumn than usual, and the barn was old. It would go up in an instant, as if it were paper. 

Closing his eyes, he dropped the torch directly next to the wall. Then, he turned his back on it, walking back to his mother.

But his mother didn’t _let_ him turn his back on it. She grabbed him by the shoulder and firmly turned him around, so his back was directly pressed against her chest. Then she held his arms tightly.

_“I’m so sorry, sweet boy, but if you don’t watch, it destroys the point.” She said, her voice becoming gentle again._

_So he had to watch as the side of the barn caught fire, becoming awash in red flame. He felt his eyes sting and it wasn’t just from the smoke._

_He tried not to think of where him and Kara were going to meet now that would be safe. He tried not to think of all the memories they’d made there. He tried not to think of where Obediah was supposed to live now, he was a twenty seven year old horse, and this was where his old master was buried. He’d never leave willingly. Mordred tried not to think of all these things as the fire consumed the rest of the barn, slowly eating it from the inside out, so nothing but a pile of embers would be left._

_Mordred struggled minimally against his mother’s grip, less out of an actual will to escape and more out of frustration. She held him steadfast, her long, pale fingers wrapped around his biceps._

_As the broken roof collapsed inside of the barn, the boy let the tears fall, crystalline streams slipping down his cheeks and landing in the sand._

_As the fire began to die down, he felt a hand leave his bicep and start to stroke his curls._

_“Mama is so . . . so sorry. But you have to understand this message. You and that girl _can’t_ be together, and if I find out you are again, it will be more than a barn that burns. I need you to ask yourself how much you’re willing to let be destroyed for you. Because I would never hurt you, Mordred. But I would hurt anyone else.”_


	3. No One Dared to Make a Slip

Merlin had felt a weight on his chest from the moment they’d passed the sign that welcomed one to Camlann. And now that he knew who ran it, he was not at all comforted. Not to mention the child-sheriff, something about whom felt . . . off. When those empty blue eyes would turn on Merlin, he felt a chill shoot down his spinal cord. 

Worse was how well Arthur seemed to be taking it. Arthur had rented them a room above the local saloon, and Merlin would rather sleep on the ground again in the cold of desert night then sleep in this town if he even could. 

“I don’t trust Madam le Fay,” confessed Merlin, as he laid on the bed and watched Arthur unbutton his shirt. 

“I don’t either, but I’m not asking you to trust her,” the ranger responded.

Merlin felt his eyes roll in their sockets. 

“Like I said, we’re not here for much longer.” 

“Well, I know but I don’t know . . . can we talk about that sheriff?” Merlin questioned, sitting up.

“. . . he’s frighteningly young, I’ll admit. Looks disturbingly young for his age on top of that. But it’s not my kid at the end of the day. It’s not my place to judge.” 

“It’s not just that . . . he creeps the fuck out of me if I’m being honest.” 

“. . . I think you’re being dramatic.” 

“There’s nothing behind his eyes, Arthur. I swear it.”

“. . . well, I’d assume his optic nerves are behind his eyes.”

“Come on, don’t be a prick.” 

Arthur walked over to Merlin, looking down at him on the bed.

“Me? A prick? I would never.” He answered, playfully.

Merlin sighed, as Arthur put his hands on his shoulders, in a likely attempt to be gentle.

“You know how much I respect your feelings in this,” Arthur began. “And I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. This place makes me feel edgy too, believe me. But just try to trust me, alright? I love you.”

Then Arthur leaned down to kiss him, their lips connecting. Merlin let him, his eyes fluttering closed . . . Arthur was a really good kisser. He was never rougher or softer than Merlin needed. 

“You know, that’s not fair . . . you can’t just kiss me like that every time I’m pissed off at you . . .” Merlin reasoned with a slight smile after Arthur had pulled away.

“It seems to be working out for me so far,.” Arthur responded.

_______________________________________

Late that night, Arthur was asleep beside Merlin, and Merlin hadn’t slept. He wasn’t entirely sure what time it was, but it was long past midnight. After he’d assessed he probably wasn’t going to sleep for a while longer yet, he sat up in the bed, slipping out of the blankets and trying not to disturb his bedmate. 

Using only the light of the moon that could be seen through the window, he pulled on his shirt, pants, and boots. As he was getting ready to leave the room, he looked back, thought for a moment, and grabbed his gun as well, shoving it into his belt. It was . . . just in case. 

Then, he stepped out of the room. He walked down the stairs, in the pitch black. The bar was closed now, Merlin knew that, and he couldn’t see a thing. It was unnerving, as he realized he couldn’t tell if someone was even in front of him, let alone behind him.

He opened the door and stepped out onto the porch and into the cool night air. Merlin had to assume it was because of the town’s placement geographically, being located in a ditch, but it wasn’t as cold here as it tended to get during this hour, and this time of year.

“It‘s a little late, ain’t it?” Merlin heard a voice say in the darkness.

He felt his body jolt and his heart skip a beat as he pulled out his gun.

“Put the piece down, I’m not gonna hurt you. Being out this late is unusual, but not illegal,” the voice told Merlin, and in a beam of moonlight he caught a glimpse of a crystal blue eye with a few black curls hanging over it. 

“Sheriff . . . didn’t see you there.” Merlin confessed, feeling it get colder all of a sudden,

“I apologize. Didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” Mordred responded.

The boy had a cigarette in his mouth, as indicated by the strong smell of smoke trailing through the air. 

“What are you doing out here?” Merlin questioned.

“I could ask the same of you.” 

“. . . I can’t always . . . sleep. Very easily. I was intending on taking a walk to see if it would help. You?”

“. . . I . . . have a lot to think about.” confessed the sheriff.

“I don’t wanna intrude but . . . everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just . . . family problems.” Merlin heard the other sigh. 

Merlin thought about that for a moment. “. . . your mother?”

A pause.

“I’ve already said too much,” Mordred said quickly, in a voice that almost shook.

“I understand if you don’t want to talk about it but if you do . . . I just want you to know I’m no rat.” 

“Uh-thank you. I’m fine but . . . thank you . . . It’s Merlin, right?” 

“Yeah, that’s right.”


	4. Big Iron on His Hip

Merlin woke up to a commotion outside, distant doors slamming and got up, grabbing his gun. 

Arthur was already awake, staring out the window, his pistol in his hand. He was still shirtless, and the sun washed over his muscular shoulders which were currently tense with anticipation, the veins on his forearms showing in taut ropes beneath golden skin.

“Arthur, what’s happening?” Merlin asked him.

“I don’t know. I think someone’s going to die.” answered the ranger in a hushed voice. 

“Oh, that’s comforting.” 

“Shut up, I’m focusing.” 

Merlin widened his eyes, sarcastically. “Can you move your bulk so I can at least see what the hell is going on?” 

Arthur glared but moved and brought Merlin over to glance through the window, down at the dusty street below. It had emptied itself, it was no longer bustling with Camlannians going about their business. Not a child nor a dog could be seen. 

They saw the somewhat unimposing, shadowy figure of Mordred walking out into the street, his black boots leaving small prints in the sand. A bit ahead of him, a man stood, and the two were hyper focused on one another. 

“Ah, shit . . .” Arthur cursed as the two men turned their backs on one another and walked in the opposite direction. 

“What?” Merlin questioned. 

“Get down.”

“What? Why?” 

“In case the bullet ricochets.” replied Arthur casually, gently pushing down on Merlin’s shoulder, urging him below the window. 

____________________________________________________________________________

Arthur probably should have followed his own advice, but he found himself captivated by what was happening outside. He never could resist a fight, besides, he was admittedly curious about the sheriff’s skill with the gun he carried on him . . . especially with the notable row of notches along its grip. Arthur hadn’t got the chance to exactly count them up close, but he knew he had met men three times Mordred’s age with less than half that body count.

When there was about twenty feet between the two gunfighters outside, there was a brief and eerie silence for a moment. Arthur knew this silence too well. The experience of waiting to see who would clear leather first and who would end up dead. 

Though, he wasn’t as flippant about death as some in his profession either. He’d known men who died over disputes about card games or horses or hell, just bumping into the wrong person by accident could earn you a chest full of lead. Mordred didn’t look like the kind of person who would kill over that sort of thing.

Mordred didn’t look like someone who would kill purely to save his own pride. Maybe he didn’t kill for himself at all. 

The gunshot came out of nowhere. The pistol had been whipped out so fast at first Arthur didn’t know who’d even shot. But there was only one gunshot. Someone had won, that much was certain, and when the man who wasn’t Mordred collapsed to the ground, clutching his bleeding throat, Arthur was . . . almost glad. He’d hoped he wasn’t finished crossing paths with the teenager so soon. 

And then he realized how impressive the act that’d just been performed in front of him was. To hit a man directly in the throat before they’d even drawn, well . . . the only gunslinger left alive Arthur could think of who was that good was . . . Arthur himself. There was also a coldness to it all. Even if more fighters could hit someone in the throat most wouldn’t attempt to do so. It’s an awful way to go. 

“What the hell just happened?” Merlin’s voice said, as he poked his head up to peer out of the window. 

“The sheriff killed a man.” 

“Mordred?”

“You’re on a first name basis with him now? Just last night you were talking about how he had no soul behind his eyes.”

“I still stand by that, Arthur.”

Outside, the town had come alive again, multiple people fleeing out of their houses to congratulate their sheriff, as small communities did. The mousy-haired girl, the one that was as scrawny as an alley cat, the one Arthur and Merlin had saved a matter of days ago had run out as well and thrown her lanky arms around Mordred’s neck. He remembered Madam Le Fay mentioning how close the two of them were . . . 

____________________________________________________________________________

The saloon that night was alive with celebration of Mordred’s kill. Arthur could tell, in some se,se, that this was a rare occurrence, but not a new one. Mordred was sitting on the bar, a drink in his hand, seeming to enjoy the attention, and Merlin and Arthur were sitting at a table nearby.

“I know everyone wants me to tell a story but there’s not too much to tell,” Mordred confessed, laughing. “I just let the gun do most of the work.”

“I’ll admit, kid, that was something back there. What you did.” Arthur said, speaking for the first time that night. 

“You really think so?” Mordred said, his blue eyes shining with delight and was it . . . admiration? 

“Well, yeah, it was fuckin’ brilliant, I’d be dumb not to acknowledge that.”

Mordred slid down from the bar and sat down at Arthur and Merlin’s table. “You know, as a kid I always wanted to be a ranger.”

Arthur chuckled dryly, slightly taken aback by Mordred’s childish curiosity in comparison to how they were currently celebrating him causing a man’s grisly death. 

“It’s uh . . . not a life for everyone. If I didn’t have Merlin I’d probably lose my mind from the . . . loneliness.” 

“You probably have won a lot of gunfights, haven’t you?”

“. . . a few,” he admitted. 

“Would you tell me about any of them?” Mordred questioned. 

“. . . some of these memories aren’t ones I’d like to revisit any time soon.” 

“Oh. That’s okay. I understand!” he said cheerfully, gulping down his drink and jumping back onto the bar. 

“Mordred, I swear, I don’t care if you’re the sheriff now, if you don’t get off my bar, I’ll smack the head off your shoulders, boy!” the barkeeper, Mary, a stout woman with a motherly aura groused. 

This threat did not affect Mordred’s mood whatsoever, and he hopped down again, a broad grin on his cherub face. 

All this commotion and celebration occurred while Madam Le Fay sat in a dim corner, looking over with a dark, suspicious expression and a drink in her hand. Arthur pretended not to notice. Merlin didn’t pretend not to notice.

_______________________________________

Merlin peered through the door left ajar into Madam Le Fay’s unlit office. There was a couch against the wall, on which Mordred lay unconscious. Merlin suspected the boy was a bit drunk after the party earlier that night. Morgana sat on an arm of the couch, leaning over the figure of her comatose child, stroking his head gently. 

Merlin knew she knew he was there, so he slipped into the room through the gap between the door and the doorframe. 

“He means the world to me . . . in a way you couldn’t understand.” she said quietly, not looking up from Mordred. 

“. . . I don’t have a child. But I know what it feels like to have someone you care about more than yourself.” Merlin slowly explained. 

“. . . the ranger.” 

“If anything happened to him . . . I don’t know what I would do. But I would kill for him.” 

“Then we understand each other.” 

Merlin paused, softly shutting the door of her office behind him. 

“Careful not to wake him. He doesn’t sleep well. Poor thing suffers from terrible nightmares . . . once he opened his eyes whilst still asleep and he thrashed so hard when I tried to wake him . . . he didn’t remember what it even was he was dreaming about, can you believe that?” her voice was velvety and rippling, like the rush of a river, with a definitive European edge, and every word said more than it did out loud. 

“. . . how do you know he wasn’t lying to you?” Merlin replied, trying to keep the conversation going, to see if she would give away any more information on her and her son’s relationship. 

“I don’t think he would lie to me about something like that,” answered the woman dismissively.

“My own mother thought the same . . . until I ran off to follow a ranger I just met, to unknown country against her wishes.” 

“Well, the difference between you and Mordred, is he doesn’t have anyone else to trust. I told him he’s a sheriff now . . . he can’t trust the rest of the town like he used to be able to.”

“Do you think that’s . . . sad?” 

“It is a bit, but trust me, he wouldn’t trade his badge for the world. I know I probably seem cruel to you but he wanted this position long before I allowed him to have it.” 

“I just wonder . . . with an aim like that,” Merlin said, “how old he possibly could have been when he picked up a gun for the first time.” 

“So you admit it.” she folded her arms, removing her hands from Mordred’s head. 

“Admit . . . what?” 

“That you think I’m cruel. A terrible mother.” 

“. . . In all honesty, Madam, it’s not my place to question you. But I do think it’s his. And I pray that when the time is right, he will.”


	5. It Was Early in the Morning

Mordred opened bleary eyes as the light of the glaring sun shone in his face early that morning. His head ached. 

“You were awful close to the ranger last night,” his mother’s voice said as she stood in front of the window, drawing open the crow black curtains.

“. . . not really, Mama. I only wanted to hear about how he killed people. You know. Might make me a better sheriff. For you,” Mordred explained as he sat up on the couch. 

He was still wearing his clothes, boots, and all as she handed him water for his hangover. 

“Thankfully, dear, you shoot better than you hold your alcohol.” His mother chuckled. 

“I don’t remember drinking a lot . . .” he said as he sipped slowly, so as not to upset his stomach. 

“I told you to slow down,” she said, ruffling his curls and kissing the top of his head. 

He shrugged and stood up too fast, stumbling on his heels for a moment. She grabbed his arm as he caught himself from falling on the couch. 

“I’m letting you take today off. I don’t think you’re in any condition to work at the moment,” she told him. 

“I don’t want today off, I’ll be fine-” 

“It’s not optional,” she said, in a sharper tone. 

He rolled his light eyes and agreed, sitting back down on the couch. 

“Oh, another thing I noticed . . .” his mother said, as she started to leave the office. 

“. . . what’s that?”

“Kara was awful close to you as well last night. She gave you a hug after you won your duel. You made me a promise, remember?” Her voice was calm but had dangerous implications, black hair shadowing her face, so her expression wasn’t quite visible to him. 

“. . . we’re only friends. I promise.”

“Good. Because I’d hate to lose such a good and loyal little spy . . .” she stated plainly before leaving, her heels clicking on the wooden floorboards of the hallway outside. 

Mordred let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, and his ribcage immediately felt less constricted. And for the first time in this hangover, Mordred felt sick. 

He stumbled to the bathroom and vomited into the waste basket letting out rough, slow, panting breaths. 

“Fuck.” he groaned.

_______________________________________

Kara felt like dying. For whatever reason, Mordred had decided not to talk to her anymore. Their barn, their choice of meeting for as long as either of them could remember, since long before they were mature enough to use it for what they had started using it for most recently, had been destroyed in a fire, and she wanted to talk to him, to at least find out where they should start meeting next. They couldn’t just not meet anymore, that was unthinkable.

They loved each other, and were basically dependent on one another at this point. 

Kara wanted to assume the best of Mordred, as she knew him well enough, so she thought to herself, of course he hasn’t just stopped loving her, he’s probably just really stressed with what Madam Le Fay is asking him to do. 

Le Fay had never liked Kara very much . . . if she had it her way, Kara would never see her son again, most likely. She was domineering over Mordred, and while Kara wanted to like her, sometimes she really just hated her. Sometimes, she was even-and keep in mind Kara’s not proud of this by any means- _jealous_ of Mordred’s mother. She could be with him any time she wanted, while Kara had to skulk around like a raccoon looking for garbage to feed on, and yet she chose to use this time to abuse him. 

Mordred would never say he was abused, Kara knew that, but he was. When they were younger, if he disobeyed his mother, the woman would beat his back or rear with a stick or a ruler, and sometimes he would bruise. Kara had been unfortunate enough to witness one or two of these beatings herself, and his shrieks of agony and pure, unfiltered broken trust still haunted her. It had been a while since Mordred had found himself forced over his mother’s desk, but the physical abuse would still go on in small ways. 

Sometimes when Kara would make love to him, she would see little red or purple circles pressed into his wrists.

When she saw these marks on him she felt very angry and frustrated, feeling helpless to do anything to improve his situation. He was eighteen, and he should be able to go where he wished, marry who he wanted, but Madam Le Fay seemed determined to keep her hands on him as long as possible. While Mordred was planning on the ranger to be his last kill for her, it was clear she had no such plans. There was no indication as to when exactly she expected this to end. He couldn’t be her assassin forever, surely Morgana knew that?

At the end of the day, no one was as good as Mordred, that was probably it. She could search high and low for a child to train and he probably still wouldn’t shoot half as straight, nor see half as far. The fact that it was Mordred mattered. 

And it would take an awful lot of time to train another child in her brutal ways, and she probably would accept no less than her own blood. 

Keeping his emotional state in mind, Kara decided to approach him at work, pushing him up against the outside wall behind the sheriff’s department. He usually liked this sort of scandalous thing, meeting in back alleys or broom closets. It usually ignited his passion for her, and she expected to see a tent grow in the black denim of his trousers as she pushed her hands into his chest, closing the distance between them. 

“Kara, what are you doing here?” He questioned in a sort of bewildered tone.

“Meeting you here, since I’ve had such a difficult time catching up to you. I miss you.” she pouted a little. 

“I-I miss you too, but look, I’m just too busy for this.” He was almost abrupt with her. 

She was at risk of tearing up over the way he was talking to her. It wasn’t exactly harsh, but it wasn’t what she was used to from him. This was the way everyone else talked to her. He was supposed to be different. She liked to see Mordred as her husband, since there was a chance they’d never get to make that official, and that made the hurt deeper.

“Mordred, since when are you too busy for me?” she questioned, her brows furrowing. 

“Kara-” he cut himself off with a sigh, and led her inside the building.

He brought her inside, gently pulling her into the dark closet. 

“I swear, I haven’t forgotten about you . . .” he whispered. 

“Why are we whispering?” she asked him. 

“Because my mother has eyes everywhere. I fear what she is planning because from the way she’s talked to me about you, it’s nothing good. I swear, I care about your safety more than anything, I’m only avoiding you to maintain it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” 

“Because I’m afraid!” hissed her lover. 

“. . . our barn burned down.” she murmured. 

“I know . . . I haven’t brought myself to tell you this until now . . . I burned it. My mother forced me to. She doesn’t want me seeing you.” 

Kara felt devastated. She always suspected this would happen, that’s why they always made efforts to at least appear like they were hiding their relationship. But she’d never been outright not allowed to see him, and her visits with him were all that was keeping her together most days. The girl lived a bleak life under Le Fay’s employ. Assist in murder for food and shelter . . . this wasn’t what she thought she’d be doing at the free and wild age of seventeen. 

She’d hoped she’d be married by now.


	6. He Came Riding From the South Side

Mordred woke up in a cold sweat, feeling his heart race in the chest he clutched with one hand. He felt himself whimper as he breathed heavily in and out, his neck and collarbone slick with sweat heaving up and down. 

He’d had a nightmare, which was a somewhat regular occurrence for him. The content of the nightmare though, was new. His mother had forced him to kill the ranger . . . but after he’d pulled the trigger, he’d realized he’d actually killed Kara. 

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the dream, but it remained in the back of his brain like a tumor. He really didn’t want to go to his mother for comfort, especially since she had been the enemy of the dream, but he couldn’t sleep alone after that. He sat up on his bed, pulled on a shirt, and crept downstairs to find his mother. 

He slowly creaked open the door of her bedroom. She stirred. 

“Mordred? Did you have another bad dream, sweet thing?” she asked him sleepily, used to this by now. 

“Yes . . . can I sleep with you tonight?” 

“Of course, baby.” 

He walked towards the bed and crawled under the covers, her arms wrapping around him, automatically. 

“I’m so sorry . . . what was it about this time?” she asked him softly, stroking his head. 

Mordred knew he couldn’t tell her. 

“I . . . just the wolf again.” 

Whenever Mordred had a bad dream he couldn’t tell his mother about, he just told her it was part of a fabricated string of recurring dreams about a big, black wolf. He himself had been compared to a black wolf by some outlaw he killed. An outlaw who probably gave Mordred too much credit, he realized, as he curled up against his mother to cope with his nightmare. 

He also realized how much he needed this, her comforting him. Even with everything she was doing to him and his relationship, it still felt the same every time. Her touch had been weaponized against him again and again and yet it still provided him succor in dark times. 

And so, as she held him against her chest, the trauma from the nightmare still lingering on him, the boy began to cry. He let out sob after brutal, wrenching sob, and tears dripped from his eyes. 

“Shhh, my boy, it’s okay . . . everything’s gonna be alright. The dream’s over now. No one’s going to hurt you,” Morgana whispered to him, clicking her tongue in a concerned, gentle way. 

He kept sobbing as she tried her best to console him. He thought she seemed to realize there was more to this breakdown than just the nightmare, and she still wanted to support him and make him feel better. 

“Oh, you poor thing . . . I wish I could take away your pain . . .” She sighed, staring at the ceiling and clutching his head in her hands. 

He nodded as he wept against her warm body. 

“I’m sorry I’m not stronger, Mama,” he admitted. 

“Oh, no . . . I wouldn’t have you any other way, baby . . . you’re not weak. You’re a very strong person. You’re just fragile. And that’s okay. That’s why you have me. I will never leave you, sweetheart. I’ll be here to pick you up and fix you every time you fall and shatter. Because that will happen so many times in the future, I want you to know that. You can never expect to stop breaking.” 

He hesitated before nodding again. 

Mordred knew that he had planned on moving away from her at some point. He couldn’t rely on her all the time . . . but then again, Mordred sometimes wondered if he could even survive without her. His mother had always been in his life, who would hold him when he had a nightmare? He had to be strong for Kara. 

“I’ve got you. Now try and go back to sleep, alright? Mama’s tired and we’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow, like always.,” she said, softly. 

Mordred nodded one more time, closing his eyes as she clasped him in her arms. 

She was the enemy. And his mother. And at the same time, the only person he had who he knew would still be there in the morning.


	7. He’s an Outlaw Loose and Running

Arthur and Merlin were planning on leaving. They’d already packed their bags, especially since Merlin was getting antsier and antsier about remaining in Camlann. Arthur had made him a promise, and he was planning on fulfilling it. 

But these plans were interrupted by none other than a gang of bandits. They’d rode in at barely sunrise, on big, smoke colored horses, their faces covered, their guns loaded. 

They ran around the town in a circle for a while, the beat of their horses’ hooves against the ground creating a great, circular dust cloud that prevented anyone from seeing the horizon, not that there was much of a horizon outside of the ditch Camlann resided in. 

Madam Le Fay strided into the center of the town, looking as darkly glamorous as ever, her murderous son at her side. 

She didn’t appear disturbed but stone-faced, as if this were a common happening. Arthur suspected that it was. 

One could not say the same about the emotional composure of Camlann. Citizens scrambled helplessly about, parents grabbing their small children, frozen in fear, out of the roads. The dirty yellow mutt Arthur’s horse had nearly stepped on yelped and dived behind a barrel in some grimy alley. 

Arthur and Merlin were waiting by Madam Le Fay and the Sheriff, but for what, neither knew. Arthur said as much. 

“What are we waiting for? I can probably shoot one of them off their horses,” the ranger asked her, his calm tone despite the situation matching her appearance of chilling tranquility. 

“Patience, ranger. I know how they work.,” she assured him. 

After a while, the horses stopped circling them and the dust cloud began to settle. 

One of the horses, a white stripe across its face that stood out against its coal-colored fur, rode into the town. Its rider was dressed in pale blue and black, and Arthur detected two pistols on his hips. 

The horse walked slowly, as if the bandit upon it had all the time in the damn world, and Arthur supposed he did. Madam, Mordred, Merlin, and Arthur all remained frozen and stoic, waiting for him to reach them in the center of the town. The clop of the horse’s enormous hooves felt more ominous than anything, and any windows that had remained open were slammed shut immediately in its wake. 

The horse stopped directly in front of Madam Le Fay, who had a smirk playing on her lips. A smirk Arthur found himself wondering whether or not was performative. 

“Madam Le Fay. You know what I’m here for.” The bandit leader’s voice was gruff and deep. He spoke in a loud, theatrical, even barking, manner. 

“Kanen. Not many bandits are quite bold enough to attempt to rob this town. For that reason, I suppose I admire you,” she responded, her voice cold, clear, and almost matching his in volume.

“So, are you gonna bring me everything you have or let me take it by force?” the bandit, whose name was apparently Kanen challenged, cold eyes glittering above his menacing smirk, which was hidden by an illy trimmed dark beard. 

“I do not intend to let you do anything, thief.” 

“Don’t call me the name of thief. In my experience, thieves have honor. I do not. I will kill your women and violate your son in front of your eyes. One must be the lowest to get on top.” 

“You’ve made the mistake of threatening my child. He’s a killing machine, and any attempt to harm him would likely be futile, I taught him everything he knows. Even if you manage to lay a hand on him, I will do things even you aren’t capable of.” 

“Well, Le Fay, if it is a war you want, it’s a war you’ll get,” sneered Kanen, pulling the reins on his horse. 

The mare reared and turned her enormous head to the side, exposing bulging veins in her thick neck. 

“I’ll return in seven days time! You can decide then if this is a battle you really want to fight!” he shouted in the wind as he rode off in the distance, his group of bandits eventually following him.

After a while, Madam turned her head to Arthur. Her hair was covered today, by a yard or so of silky, black fabric. 

“I hate to ask this of you, Arthur . . . but I’m afraid this is not a battle I want my son to fight. I’ll pay you whatever you need, but could I convince you to stay until Kanen returns?” 

Now, Arthur was positively craving the taste of battle. He knew Merlin wouldn’t be happy about this at all, but . . . 

“Madam, I’d be honored.” 

____________________________________________________________________________

“You can’t make me stay home for this one,” Mordred said with a glare. 

His arms were folded, and he was leaned against the wall of her office. His mother was doing paperwork at her desk.

“My mind is made up, Mordred. He threatened you specifically. Your life isn’t one I can risk all the time,” she told him. 

“This isn’t fair. Are you trying to replace me with the ranger?!” demanded her son. 

“Of course not. I’m only forbidding you from fighting Kanen and his men.” 

Mordred stomped his foot like a child. 

“Mordred Le _Fay_ ,” she said in a threatening tone, giving him a sharp glare. 

“I feel replaced,” he explained, justifying his outburst. 

“And I’ve informed you that you are not,” she said, scribbling something down on a piece of paper. 

“Do you not think I’m good enough?” 

“It’s not that at all. You’re the best gunman I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a fair bit more than you.” 

“What if people think I’m a coward?” 

“Anyone insults you based on your bravery, you give me the name.” 

“Oh, so not only am I a coward but I need my mother to fight my battles-” 

She got up from her desk and smacked Mordred directly in the mouth, his teeth connecting with the back of her hand. 

He yowled like a coyote and clutched his mouth with one hand. 

“You’re staying back next week and that’s final,” she snapped. 

Mordred felt tears of pain and humiliation sting his eyes.

“Yes, Mama.”


	8. Many Men Had Tried to Take Him

“Arthur, you’re insane,” Merlin began as he stood, arms folded in their room at the inn, staring at his partner and lover. 

“I know we were supposed to go home, and we will-“

“I don’t want to hear that from you right now! You just agreed to stay another seven days!” 

The two men stared at each other for a moment. They fought often, but neither enjoyed doing so. 

“Well, you can leave if you really want to. It’ll be easy enough for me to track you-“ Arthur started.

“Oh, don’t be fucking ridiculous.” Merlin cut the ranger off, rolling his eyes. “I’m staying by your side no matter what, but what am I supposed to do if this . . . _Kanen_ kills you?” 

“You really put that little faith in me?”

“You haven’t seen him shoot yet, I’m just being realistic.” 

“Have you ever seen a man who could shoot as well as me?” Arthur challenged.

“You and I both have. A matter of days ago.” 

“The kid’s been trained to kill since birth, of course he’s almost as good as me-“

Merlin reached for the door handle, really needing a cigarette, and looked back at Arthur, grabbing it.

“Almost?” was all he said before exiting the inn. 

_______________________________________

“Mordred, my dear, you’re quiet.” Mordred’s head snapped to attention when he heard his mother’s voice, more out of fear than anything else.

“I-I’m sorry,” he said quietly. 

His mother had ordered him to stay by her side for the rest of the day instead of making his usual rounds, so he was sitting on the windowsill in her office.

“Don’t be . . . I’m only asking out of concern. Are you still upset I struck you?” Her voice was deceptively gentle in tone.

Mordred said nothing, only rubbed his cheek and mouth in response. 

She clicked her tongue. “Oh, baby . . . Mama’s sorry. I lost my temper with you.”

“I-I know, Mama.” 

“Let me see your face,” she asked him, standing up.

He hesitantly hopped off the sill and went to her. She moved to touch him and he instinctively flinched. 

“I’m not going to hurt you. You’re being very good now,” she said, in a way that warned him about defying her again . . . at the same time, he could tell it was supposed to be a compliment.

The praise was supposed to make him feel good, and he hated that it kind of did. Not so much pleasing her, but knowing that someone was pleased with him.

As long as he was compliant, he was safe in his mother’s hands. 

He let her pinch his chin between her fingers and tip his head, examining his mouth and cheek. 

“You’ve got a little blood. I’ll clean you up, don’t worry.” 

Mordred let her lead him to the bathroom. When he was a small child, the bathroom by her office was where she took him to wash his mouth out with soap the one time he cursed out one of her business partners. Everything about his mother’s office had some kind of trauma of his attached to it in his brain. She was always a strict parent, and she practically raised him in this room alone.

There were plenty of positive memories of course. She used to hold him in her lap when he was little and tell him stories about knights and fair maidens and fire breathing dragons. In this bathroom she would let him brush and braid her hair, often clumsily because he was a child, but she would just laugh.

Mordred watched her dampen a cloth and start to gently wipe at his bottom lip which his tooth had cut when he’d been slapped. 

“There we go . . .” she softly remarked when she’d finished. 

He hadn’t been smacked like that in a while. She tried not to outright hit him these days. She usually shoved or grabbed him and that was enough. Mordred didn’t think it was because she felt he’d outgrown being slapped and beaten arbitrarily and thought if he was stupid enough to do something that had earned him a beating in the past, he’d probably receive one. She would occasionally hang the threat of it over his head, sometimes harmlessly pinning him on her desk but going no further, just to remind him when he had really upset her, but . . . her strictness had turned him into a clever child. He knew her limits well. He knew how to avoid pushing her to those limits, and sometimes knew how to get her to heighten them.

In other words, he knew she must have been stretched especially thin lately for her to think that was necessary.

And it was frightening.


	9. That Many Men Were Dead

The sun was beginning to set ahead, the sky turning from blue, to gold, to amber, and at the very bottom, brilliant scarlet, like blood splattered along the sand after a pistol duel.

Merlin took another drag off his cigarette as he stared at it, standing on the porch outside their room’s door. 

He let out a heavy sigh, as his mind worried about several things at once. He didn’t want anything to happen to Arthur, but he also didn’t want anything to happen to him. Either one of them would die for the other, they had long since established that, but they hadn’t put a lot of thought into what happens afterwards.

What happens when one half of a whole is left to wander the earth without the other? 

If Kanen didn’t kill Arthur, Merlin was afraid Mordred would, at someone else’s order or otherwise. He was even more chilling now that Merlin had actually seen him kill. Seeing the notches on his pistol was merely a warning they should have taken. 

_______________________________________

It had been seven days since Kanen’s arrival, and Camlann was on edge. 

Mordred had almost completely disappeared from Kara’s life, and though she knew it wasn’t his fault, it hurt. Last time she’d seen him, though, she could swear his lip was cut, and she’d known Madam Le Fay long enough to imagine why. 

Kara had been called into the woman’s office, and when she’d entered, the door was shut behind the two of them, which made the whole experience nerve-wracking. She was almost never called here alone, she wasn’t important enough, and the door was hardly ever shut. 

“Kara, my dear, I need to ask a favor of you . . .” Le Fay said, facing away from her, just staring out the window, a glass of whiskey in her hand. 

“. . . what is it?” the girl asked, her tone thick with apprehension.

Madam Le Fay handed her a bundle wrapped in crinkled brown paper, and tied with twine. Slowly, she opened it, unfolding it to reveal a pile of earth-toned clothes. 

“What’s this for?” she questioned. 

The clothes were clearly for a man, probably a man a bit bigger than Kara, though, everyone was bigger than Kara. 

“When Kanen arrives, you’re going to put those on. Be fast, I anticipate the battle to be over quickly. And I’ll show you where to go. Make sure no one in Camlann sees you.” 

“. . . why?” 

“Because . . . you need to pass as a bandit.” she answered, plainly. 

Kara frowned. “Why?” 

“You shouldn’t ask too many questions, darling. It’s not an attractive quality in a woman who hopes to be married.” 

Le Fay knew damn well who Kara wanted to marry, and knew Mordred would never mind her questions. He loved her curious brain and he could often match it. She knew that his mother probably still hoped their love was a puppy love phase, that they’d get over soon, and that Kara would simply decide one day to marry some out of town business man, or collier lad. 

If it weren’t for Mordred, she might be right.

“. . . I thought you wanted the bandits dead.” said Kara.

“Well, of course I do. If you do this for me, you’ll make it easier to do so. They threatened Mordred, and I know you and I both have a vested interest in protecting him. Don’t you?” Le Fay had begun to pace back and forth around Kara.

“I do . . . we’ve been friends since before I could remember.” 

There was a pause before the other woman replied. 

“Right. And he’s done so much to protect you, I know how badly you’d like to return the favor. So many battles I haven’t permitted you to participate in . . .” 

“Well, I do want to protect him, but I’m just not much good in a battle, Madam.” Kara explained, feeling her stomach tighten.

“I won’t require you to do any fighting at all. And . . . as usual, I’m not asking.”


	10. He Was Vicious and a Killer

Arthur was up before the sun on that seventh day. It was a Sunday, and ordinarily the citizens of Camlann would be heading off to Church this morning. And a particularly beautiful morning it was, with mild temperatures and light winds, but no one dared go. No one even dared to leave their house, save those with farms who would dash out, feed their livestock, and then dash back inside like a bat out of fucking hell. 

As the sun slowly peeked over the horizon, he looked over at Merlin sleeping on the bed, his pretty face becoming awash in the golden light of the Arizona sun, blazing and without diminish. And Arthur felt a pain of guilt in his heart. He would try his best to keep him safe, because if anything happened to him throughout the duration of the upcoming battle, it would surely be Arthur’s fault. 

I love you, and I’m sorry, he thought.

____________________________________________________________________________

At noon, as promised, the bandits were upon them, riding on their jet black horses and wielding their guns. Arthur and Madam Le Fay’s men would have taken this fight out of town but the horizon surrounding Camlann was flat as a board in every direction. This meant there wasn’t a rock in sight to hide behind, and they’d have to resort to the very walls people resided in.

Bullets bounced in every direction and hammered into panels of wood. They tore through wallpaper and blasted through windows, scattering broken glass upon the ground. Arthur was barely looking as he gunned them down, and he felt immense self-reproach as he heard the bone-chilling whinny of a horse that had been shot. 

Everything passed by in a blur as he hid behind the wall of the saloon, pistol raised against his chest. Every time he had the opportunity he reached out and shot. 

That’s probably how it happened, if he was being honest, after the fact. 

How he didn’t notice one of the people he shot was too small to be one of Kanen’s men. How their cry of pain was distinctly feminine. He was too focused on the kill, too focused on survival, and protection. 

____________________________________________________________________________

Kara could barely see anything between the cloth that covered her face and hid her long, brown hair, and the hat that was a little too big for her. But after she’d dressed in the clothes of a bandit, Madam Le Fay ordered her to run through the center of the town. 

She felt it was right in the middle of the crossfire, but she didn’t feel like Le Fay wanted her dead, so she trusted that she knew what she was doing . . . 

So she just ran, past the houses, feeling bullets whoosh past her. It was almost exhilarating how close to death she really was, even if terrifying. Her scrawny legs pushed her as fast as she could go, she hadn’t worn pants in years, the experience was freeing. 

As she started to contemplate on how her lungs were burning it hit her. 

It hit her right in the chest. 

The impact took the breath out of her and landed her flat on her back. She gasped, her hat having fallen off, and drifted away somewhere, so that her hair was becoming undone around her shoulders. Her shaking hands went to her chest and felt something damp. When she pulled them away to look at them, her fingers were tipped with scarlet, like red paint. 

She wanted to scream but she could barely breathe, her sides pulsing in little motions as she frantically tried to get a full breath. 

“M-Mordred . . .” she whimpered, though she knew he wasn’t anywhere around her.


	11. Though, a Youth of 24

Bodies littered the street after the battle was over. Smoke lay thick in the breezeless air and everything was eerily quiet. 

The sand crunched under Mordred’s boots as he stepped out of his mother’s house and looked around at the destruction. She, however, was nowhere to be seen. In the distance, he could hear the croaking squawk of a faraway crow. 

He stepped past the bodies of bandits, glancing down at them until he reached almost the end of the street. Mordred stopped in his tracks, unsure if he was seeing who he thought he was seeing. He’d been told she was safe, been told she was hiding in a cellar somewhere. 

But as he crouched next to her limp and lifeless form, her face was unmistakable. As was the sucking wound at her chest.

“K-Kara?” he said breathlessly. 

He gently put a hand on the back of his lover’s pallid neck, lifting it up off the sand, her head flopping back weakly, her hair brushing the sand. Kara let out a soft moan, and her bright eyes fluttered open a bit. 

“I kept you safe . . .” she whispered, her lips cracked and dry from lying in the beating sun. 

“No-I don’t need you to do that-I certainly don’t need you getting shot for me-Kara-” Mordred felt his voice crack as it raised. 

“I’m sorry. I love you.” She gave him a little smile as tears began to shine in her eyes. 

“P-please don’t die-.” Mordred’s own eyes began to sting. “We never made it to all the places you wanted to go. We never got to be free.”

He kept repeating this under his breath, as he held her trembling hand in his, and she laid in his arms, blood leaking from her chest, soaking her shirt and trousers. 

“Maybe not . . . but I’m so happy I met you, Mordred. Even with everything we’ve been through. And I think-” Her voice heightened with the pain. “I think that’s what love is . . . it’s when you’re still happy you knew someone . . . even if your life would be happier and easier if-if you didn’t.” 

Tears fell down Mordred’s pale cheeks as he heard her words, expecting every sentence that came from her to be the last. 

“I do love you, I love you so much and I can’t lose you, I can’t not have you anymore-fuck I felt like we already got so little time- and we’re both so young-” sobbed the sheriff as he felt her breaths getting quicker and quicker. 

“Be strong for me, baby. You’re gonna be okay,” she told him, in a reassuring tone. 

“What am I gonna do, though? Without the woman I love?” 

Her expression became serious and she gripped his hand harder even as her strength lessened with every heaving gasp. 

“Run away. It doesn’t matter that I’m not with you, run far, far away from your mother, Mordred. She does not want what’s best for you . . . promise me . . . promise me you’ll escape . . .” Kara’s voice as she insisted this was so faint it was barely a whisper.

Mordred looked down at her and replied, “I promise.”

And then he watched the light fade from her blue eyes and the last of her strength leave her veins as her hand became lifeless in his hold. 

Kara had slipped away. 

For a while Mordred just cried. He wept harder than he’d ever done so over her body. He sobbed until his sides were sore, he screamed at the heavens until his throat burned. He clutched her against his chest, her corpse still warm and held her as he would do when she was still alive, just rocking her back and forth on his knees. 

And when he was all out of tears he laid next to her, wishing he were dead as well, because a life without her did not feel at this time like a life worth living. He stayed like that for a long time. As the sun began to set and the temperature began to lower, he shivered next to his lover’s body. 

Until he felt footsteps next to him. Someone crouched next to him, wearing a familiar perfume. 

“I wanted to give you time to grieve, my boy,” Mordred’s mother’s voice said. 

He looked up at her as he lay flat on his back in the dust. 

“Why, Mama . . . why her? Why was she here at all?” he asked hoarsely, his tone void of hope. 

“She insisted on helping . . . she was mistaken for a bandit. I tried to stop her. I am so, so sorry . . .” 

“Who shot her?” 

“. . . I think you know the answer to that question.” 

Then Mordred felt his grief slowly turn to rage, as a reason to live . . . made itself known. 

____________________________________________________________________________

“I didn’t want to kill her! My whole life I’ve gone without killing a woman, and she was a child!” 

Arthur’s voice was almost grief stricken as he paced back and forth in his and Merlin’s room. This room was beginning to feel constrictive. 

“I don’t think it was your fault, how were you to know-” Merlin explained, though secretly he felt this never would have happened if Arthur hadn’t insisted on participating in the whole event in the first place, but he knew the ranger was hardly in the right place for that discussion. 

“The whole thing was such a mess! I couldn’t see what I was doing-I hit a horse! Dear God, I hit a horse, I am going to hell.” Arthur had the remnants of what Merlin knew were tears in his brilliantly blue eyes. 

Arthur hardly ever cried, believing it to be a sign of shame, and he didn’t like it when Merlin cried around him either, but Merlin did anyway. However, the few times Arthur did, he could only cry around Merlin, no one else, so this wasn’t exactly the first time. 

Merlin went to him and wordlessly wrapped his arms around Arthur. He didn’t tell him “I told you so” even though he had. There wasn’t anything Merlin could say that Arthur wasn’t already telling himself, probably in a more abrasive way, as well. Right now this is what Arthur needed. 

“It’s going to be okay.” Merlin told him, gently. 

“We need to get out of here, don’t we?” breathed Arthur shakily. 

“Yes. I think we definitely do.” Merlin replied as he held the other in his arms, Arthur’s head resting in the crook of Merlin’s neck. 

“I’m sorry,” Arthur aid, tearfully.

“I know.”


	12. 1 and 19 More

Mordred had never actually challenged any man to a dual before. Usually, either challenges against him were issued, or he killed people in a more assassination-like fashion. Getting them on their knees and then pressing the barrel of his gun to the back of their head. Whoever his mother wanted him to kill. Either way was alright with him in this case, as long as the ranger ended up dead in the end. Even if it killed him in the process he wanted him dead. 

His mother hadn’t ordered him to do what he was doing now, either, as he strapped on his colt at the brink of dawn. She hadn’t tried to stop him, but she hadn’t told him to do it. He had a feeling she didn’t mind though. Killing the ranger had been his mother’s goal from the beginning. 

Mordred had not slept the night before . . . he’d buried Kara. Dug the hole himself, placed her fragile, papery corpse inside it, then sat next to the grave he’d created and held something of a vigil in the darkness. Now the sun was up, and he would avenge her. 

______________________________________________________________________________ 

Arthur’s anxiety had increased ever since he’d killed Kara. Whatever was going to happen from now on, he was no longer safe in Camlann. He didn’t know if Madam Le Fay would care, but Sheriff Le Fay certainly would. He and Merlin were preparing to leave, but he expected them to be attacked at any moment. 

“Coffee in this inn is shit,” Arthur remarked, the two of them forcing themselves to talk about something that wasn’t their current situation. 

“When we get back on the road I’ll make some,” Merlin commented absentmindedly as he folded clothes with Arthur, packing their bags. 

It felt good . . . to be able to do this. To pretend they weren’t likely in imminent danger and go back to their somewhat ordinary lives again. 

“I think I’ve achieved a bias for yours . . . nothing tastes as good anymore,” Arthur told him.

Merlin laughed and Arthur realized he hadn’t heard that sound in a long time. 

And then the door busted open and Arthur pushed Merlin to the floor behind the bed, as what he knew was going to happen, began to. 

He fired his gun in the room and the bullet hit the wall, blowing shards of wood across the carpet. 

Mordred stood in the center of the room, shaking hands holding a pistol, his eyes red and crazed, like those of a horse that had been spooked by a rattlesnake. He wasn’t wearing a hat, exposing his ordinarily shiny and impeccable curls, that were now matted. His instability was incredibly apparent, so Arthur thought he must be on some level not past being reasoned with. On the other hand, it might be even more difficult to do so. 

“Mordred . . . I didn’t mean to kill your girl, I didn’t even know her,” Arthur tried to explain, holding his hands out including the one that held his own gun so that the barrel was aimed harmlessly at the ceiling. 

“I don’t need your reasoning,” hissed the grief stricken boy. 

“I’m not about to have a shoot-out with you right now, especially not in front of Merlin,” scoffed Arthur. 

“Then don’t fire back. I’m going to shoot no matter what,” Mordred reasoned. 

Arthur cocked his head. He supposed that was a logical statement. It described the trap they were in right now. Fight back or die.

“Okay-” Arthur closed his eyes, trying to think of a way to get them out of the immediate danger. “If we’re going to do this, we’ve gotta do it properly. Pistols at noon, ten paces, you know how it works.” 

Mordred thought for a moment, blue eyes flicking between Arthur and Merlin, who was watching the entire debacle with an incomprehensible expression. 

“I’m not willing to give you time to run,” the sheriff told them. 

“I . . . I won’t. You know it’d be a stain on my honor I could never erase.” 

That was true. It was difficult enough to gain respect in this world. No one would hear that Arthur Pendragon ran from a fight. 

After a moment, the boy slowly nodded. 

“Okay. We’ll do it outside the chapel. In a way that would ensure it won’t get hit in the crossfire,” he agreed shakily. 

“You a real man of God, then, Mordred?” Merlin said, in an almost bitter tone, maybe at the door that was splintered off its hinges, maybe at the situation in general.

“I don’t know. I hope the love of my life is in a better place right now. Since the love of yours took her out of it,” Mordred told Merlin. 

And then the sheriff clipped his gun back onto his belt and took his leave. 

“. . . Arthur . . .” Merlin started to say.

He knew as well as Arthur did that he wouldn’t walk away from this. And this could damn well be the end of him.

_______________________________________

“Please. Please don’t do this.” Merlin was practically begging his partner at this point.

“I . . . if I survive this my honor will never recover. I’ll win the duel. I promise.”

“Fuck your honor! You promised me you’d leave! I’m tired of your promises! Do you believe me that this place is dangerous and we should take Mordred seriously as a threat or not?!” Merlin shouted, his voice breaking.

“I . . . I do.”

“Then why are you doing this?! We have time to leave! We should do so!” 

“. . . because . . . Merlin, I’m a wanderer. I call myself a ranger but I’m unaffiliated with anyone and any government. I only have you and my pride. That’s my life’s work.” 

There was a pause as they both stood in front of each other. The morning wind blew through the open door, whistling a bit. 

“Let me ask you this then . . . which one matters more? Me? Or your pride?” Merlin questioned.

Arthur had no answer.


	13. Wouldn’t Be Too Long in Town

In the dead of night, Merlin crept out of the inn, gun in his hand. The wind was howling, making his clothes stick to his skin and chill his bones, the weather being much less nice than it had been the past week or so. 

He didn’t have to go looking for Madam Le Fay, he saw her smoking outside the chapel, her hair unbound and flowing in messy, twisted ropes around her shoulders. She stood on the porch and leaned on the railing, staring out into the distance. Merlin jumped over the railing to join her on the porch, his boots thumping on the pristine white boards. 

The woman paid him no visible mind, the only sign she even knew he was there was a slight smirk that began to grace her countenance. 

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Kara dead, Mordred grieving . . . why do you want to kill Arthur? How has he ever wronged you? He’s never even met you!” Merlin demanded, having to shout over the wind that screamed in his ears, louder and louder still.

Le Fay pressed her cigarette to her lips, taking a long drag from it. How it was staying alight in this weather was beyond him. 

“The Pendragon line is a cancer upon this world,” she answered finally, blowing smoke from her mouth.

It vanished almost immediately, dissipating like billowing, grey clouds.

“I . . .” Merlin stammered.

He knew that Arthur had become a ranger despite his disapproving father, who Merlin had never met, but knew Arthur still missed at times, but other than that, he knew nothing of Arthur’s family, and honestly didn’t think Arthur did either.

“What the fuck does that mean?” he asked.

“. . . Come inside so we can talk properly. It’s cold,” replied the woman, putting the cigarette out on the railing in front of her.

Hesitantly, Merlin nodded.

The two entered the chapel and when the door shut behind them, it did so heavily, the slam of it echoing throughout the area. It was a humble thing, just two rows of old benches that had various things scratched into them standing before a little wooden altar. 

There was a single stained glass window in front of a wooden cross, which depicted a baby lamb being held by a shepherd, surrounded by sheep. The other windows were small and plain. One was broken. Two were boarded up. Not everyone who slung guns in this town were as respectful as Mordred, apparently. 

Merlin watched as Le Fay lit a candle which sat on the altar, giving the room a soft, orange glow.

“My father and Arthur’s are one and the same . . .” she began.

“. . . you’re a Pendragon?” 

It was dead silent other than their voices. The walls kept the sound of the wind out surprisingly well. 

“Unfortunately. I don’t go by the name because . . . I truly hate my father.”

“But wouldn’t that make you part of this . . . cancer you speak of?” asked Merlin.

“It would and it does.”

“Yet you had a child anyway?”

“Mordred was an . . . unplanned and youthful mistake. I love the boy dearly, of course, he’s the light of my life. However . . . if I could go back to the night of his conception and change my mind . . . I know not what I would choose to do. Therefore I’m glad I can’t.” 

“. . . so you wish death on Arthur because he has his father’s blood?” Merlin said, frowning.

“In a way. Although it doesn’t help he was raised by the man. I can see him in the things he does, the way he speaks and moves . . . you wouldn’t notice.” 

“Madam Le Fay, I tried to convince Arthur not to do this. You have to stop your son. This will end in one of us losing what matters most to us, I don’t want to lose Arthur and I don’t want you to lose Mordred. He’s just a boy and right now he’s unstable, and he’s angry.” Merlin pleaded.

She looked at him with surprising coldness, even for her.

“I can’t stop him. He will see me as a traitor to him,” she explained.

“As if he didn’t already get that impression by you striking him.”

“Don’t tell me how to take care of my child as if you could do better by him. If I wasn’t sure he’d be alright I wouldn’t strike him, just like if I wasn’t sure he could survive this I wouldn’t allow him to duel Arthur,” she snapped. “The world will be much harder on my baby boy than I ever was and he knows that, that’s why I do it.” 

Merlin rolled his eyes but didn’t respond, not wanting to have this argument with her when this was the situation at hand. Arthur’s life.

“. . . regardless of your own child’s upbringing, yours doesn’t have to be settled like this . . . I know not how your father hurt you. I have no doubt he did. But I know Arthur. He’s a good man.” 

She turned to Merlin, a sad smile on her face. “. . . it’s not enough. Besides. It was my son who challenged him. I did not tell him to. And I am not to blame.” 

Merlin glared at her, feeling his heartbeat quicken in fear and frustration. 

“If your son wins this duel, and lives . . . I will kill him. I want you to know that. I will shoot him in the throat,” he assured her.

“When my son wins this duel, Merlin, I would like to see you try.” 

_______________________________________

Mordred woke up from a nightmare after finally getting to sleep for the first time since Kara died. A nightmare, in which he watched his mother stab Kara with a steak knife and cut her into pieces. 

He wanted comfort from the dream but he didn’t want his mother after that, and he couldn’t have Kara. Even if he did want his mother, he couldn’t find her on this night. Sometimes she went for long walks around town late at night and he could only assume that’s where she was now. 

It made him a bit anxious, being alone in the house without her. It gave him the creeps.

He got out of bed and walked downstairs. He pulled on his boots, shirt and coat and stepped outside. Then he walked a long, little trodden path, which he’d walked many times before.

When he’d arrived at his destination, the old horse was there, standing in the patchy field with the big scorch marks, loyal as ever. 

Mordred smiled and went to it, holding out his hand. 

“Hey, Obediah . . . miss me?” He said, gently.

The horse sputtered and slowly plodded towards the boy, nuzzling his hand.

“I missed you too . . .” Mordred said, throwing his arms around Obediah’s thick, velvety neck.

And then he began to cry. If he could rely on no one else for comfort, he could at least rely on this old gelding, who hopefully would outlive Modred.


	14. Take an Outlaw Back Alive or Maybe Dead

Another day in Camlann began with a stunning sunrise that felt oddly foreboding. Because this time it meant something. It meant by noon today, which was mere hours away . . . Arthur and Mordred would be standing off. 

Merlin had been trying not to think about that as he and Arthur laid in bed together, holding one another in each other’s arms. Merlin tried not to think this could be the last time they would do so. If Arthur died today he will have died for nothing. Pointless, selfish warrior pride. 

But Merlin knew that would be what killed Arthur eventually. He was a stubborn bastard and sometimes that benefited them both. These last few weeks hadn’t been one of those times . . . 

Merlin was angry and afraid as he clutched Arthur against his chest while he slept that morning. He was more afraid than he was angry, but most strongly, he was tired. He’d spent so long being dragged from place to place by Arthur, following him because at the end of the day he loved him. And this was by far the worst place they’d been. He asked Arthur to trust him, just this once . . . and he hadn’t. 

______________________________________________________________________________

“I’m proud of you.” Mordred heard his mother inform him as the two sat in her office.

“. . . thank you. Why is that?” 

“Because you lost Kara, but you didn’t let that discourage you from avenging her. Revenge gives you purpose, my child.” 

“. . . I understand. What do I do when I get that revenge, though?” 

“You will experience a form of catharsis like no other. You will be more complete than you ever were when she was alive, and ever would be.” 

For a moment he stared at her as he sat on the couch, and looked up at his mother. 

“That kind of makes it sound like . . . it was a good thing. What happened.” stated the sheriff. 

“Of course not . . . but . . . it does mean that it was not completely a bad thing,” his mother answered, sitting next to him on the opposite end of the couch.

Instinctively he slid closer to her, resting his head on her bony shoulder. 

The sun glimmered through the slight gap in the night black curtain, lighting the glossy, black hardwood that made up the floor. Outside the town was busy, as if someone wasn’t going to die today. People were doing their shopping, and children were playing, livestock was grazing.

And the two lay in gentle silence. Mordred and his mother. 

“Do you think I’m . . . going to win?” he asked her. 

“Yes, dear. You always do. No one is better than you, I made sure of that,” she assured him. 

He nodded and went silent again. 

A crow cried outside the window. 

Then Mordred told his mother a secret, in a low voice, as if his lips and lungs were moving of their own accord.

“I had a dream you killed Kara.” 

______________________________________________________________________________

The morning passed too quickly. By eleven, Arthur stood on the porch of the inn, looking out across the town. 

He heard a pair of boots thud up the stairs to the porch beside him and he didn’t look at who it was. He knew who. 

“I killed my first man in a duel when I was only fourteen. I shot my first gun when I was twelve.” the high, familiar voice confessed. 

“. . . impressive. I expected younger,” Arthur told the sheriff.

“. . . none of those times did I choose it. This would be my first time where . . . I got to choose whose name gets chiseled into a headstone.” 

“Rangers don’t get headstones,” was all Arthur said in response to that. 

Nothing about why Mordred was so convinced it wouldn’t be him who died. 

“Right. Of course not. You have no family.” 

“I expect Merlin will burn me, if I die.” 

“You still don’t want this.” Mordred detected, correctly.

“Clearly on some level you don’t either, or you wouldn’t be talking to me right now.” 

The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a tin of cigarettes. He pulled one out along with a book of matches. He lit one and dropped the match on the wooden porch, grinding it with his heel. 

“This is my favorite place to smoke. That’s what I’m doing here. Nothing more important than that.”

The cigarette hanging out of his mouth clashed with the soft, cherubic effect his face held, in an uncomfortable way. 

“. . . if you win . . . what happens after?” Arthur asked him. 

“. . . I’m going to run away,” confessed Mordred. 

“From your mother?” 

“I was going to do it with Kara. Before she died at your hands.” 

“. . . I know it doesn’t matter to you. But I really never-” Arthur tried to say. 

“You’re right,” Mordred cut him off in an icy tone, making eye contact with him for the first time throughout this discussion. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

The two went back to staring out into the distance, avoiding one another’s gazes. 

“It’s not too late.” Arthur mentioned.

Mordred remained silent in response. 

“To . . . not do this. You could run away, and I could run away, take Merlin with me. Fuck your mother, right?” the ranger suggested, turning to the boy whose curls blew in the wind, blue eyes meeting blue eyes. 

“. . . you made me a promise, remember?” 

“No- I won’t run if you don’t agree to it. I’m asking you to agree to it,” he encouraged. 

A moment passed between them. 

“. . . no. I can’t do it before I avenge her. I need revenge or . . . death. I don’t see any other way this could . . . work.” Mordred confessed, his voice surprisingly open and childlike. 

He didn’t sound accusatory. He sounded damn exhausted. But Arthur’s heart still sank at his words. 

The ranger hesitantly nodded and stepped off the porch, his boots hitting the sand below. Nodding again, and heaving broad shoulders with a sigh, he walked away, leaving Madam Le Fay’s boy to his thoughts of grief. 

Arthur took a long walk, knowing it could very well be the last one he took. He wished i he could do this in more familiar, or prettier scenery. He wished he was in his home city instead, but this was alright. He held his pistol in his hand and stared at it. It seemed different now that it had been used to kill an innocent girl. Where it used to seem like the sword of righteousness it now felt like . . . a devil’s tool. 

But Arthur wasn’t the devil. In fact, he was sure Madam Le Fay was the closest thing to that, that any human being could get.


	15. 20 Men Had Tried to Take Him

The church bells rang 12 times. 

The blare of it echoed throughout Camlann. Everyone froze and bolted their houses, taking their children and their animals with them. 

“Remember. You’re not doing this for me. You’re doing this for Kara,” Madam Le Fay assured Mordred as he stood by the chapel across from Arthur. 

He nodded numbly. 

“. . . be careful,” was all Merlin said to his partner, kissing him deeply, placing his hand on his chest. 

Then, both Merlin and Morgana stepped back to let them engage one another in combat. 

Mordred and Arthur stepped towards one another, the wind whistling slightly, the sand crunching beneath their feet. 

“I’m sorry that we could not meet under better circumstances. I think we could have been friends,” Arthur told the boy.

Mordred looked a lot like how he looked when Arthur had first met him. His hat was secured tightly around his curls, and his gaze was fierce.

“Yeah . . . me too,” Mordred agreed.

Then the two men turned their backs on one another and took ten slow paces in opposite directions. Arthur felt his heart pound harder with every step. Mordred found his expression become less determined and vicious and more sorrowful and concerned. 

Even regretful.

But it was too late for regrets now. For a moment, once they had taken those ten paces, they both just stared into the distance, opposite from each other, the sun beating down on them from above. If Mordred won, he would run off and travel to faraway cities that would seem less beautiful now that he was seeing them alone. If Arthur won he would reluctantly add another notch on his pistol, and the knowledge he had killed the boy and his lover would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Then they turned on their heels, to face one another. They flexed their hands by their colts. Took deep, slow breaths. 

The suspense was agonizing as everyone watched intently, eyes glancing from behind boards nailed across windows. And Merlin watched too, with uncertainty, Morgana with unfaltering confidence. 

A crow squawked in the distance. The world seemed to freeze around them. 

_BA-BANG!_

The noise rang out angrily, echoing and bouncing off the walls that contained Camlann. A great flapping of wings was heard as every bird in the area fled. Small gasps could be heard from the concealed citizens. 

Merlin narrowed his eyes to gain a better view. 

And Mordred and Arthur both looked up from their smoking guns to stare at one another. 

____________________________________________________________________________

Mordred had been shot before, in his thigh. It had been the worst pain he’d felt in his life, worse than anything his mother had done to him. He had laid helpless in the dust, then when he’d been rescued and brought home, bled out for days before miraculously recovering.

He did not think he would recover this time. 

His hand subconsciously went to his bleeding gut, and he glanced down. His shirt and his hand was completely soaked.

“O-oh,” Mordred whimpered, shakily before his knees buckled underneath him, and he collapsed onto the ground. 

_“MORDRED!” <\i>_

_As he began to lose consciousness, he heard his mother’s raw shriek of shock and horror. It was a devastating sound, that of a grieving mother . . . even if she had not always been a mother to him._

_At least he would go out the same way that Kara did._

_Every bit of pain he was feeling right now was pain that she felt too. If there was a heaven, Mordred realized he wasn’t going there, so he would . . . never see her again. But he hoped heaven for her looked like London, or New Orleans, or Paris. He hoped it looked like bright lights and boys prettier than Mordred who she could marry and vast flower gardens and not a grain of sand in sight._

_He hoped one way or another she would get what she wanted._

_Mordred knew what hell looked like for him. It looked like shadow and fear and a great black wolf._

_It was a good day out right now. The breeze had calmed down . . . the sun was shining bright and there were a few, fluffy white clouds in the sky. He could enjoy this . . . before he let out his last gasping breath._

_A raven landed by Mordred, its glaring black eye gleaming in the sunbeams, its dark feathers shining in brilliant colors as it was bathed in the light. And Mordred knew what that raven was telling him._

__No, Mordred . . . you’re not a wolf. Or a shadow. Or a monster. Child, you are neither killer, nor victim. You are a bird who has experienced the freedom of soullessness. And where you’re going . . . has no earthly name._ _

______________________________________________________________________________

_Arthur had lost count on how many times he’d been shot. He’d even been shot in the gut before. But he could tell this one was different. It didn’t exactly hurt more or less than any other time. But he could tell his spirit was in no state to pull him through._

_Arthur dropped to his knees with a groan, causing more blood to gush out of the wound that sucked mercilessly at his torso. He had his arms wrapped around his stomach, and he dropped his pistol on the sand._

__So this is how it’s ending?_ The ranger thought as he stared at the ground, kneeling on that desert floor. _

__Dad, did I make you proud? Is this what you wanted?_ _

_He fell sideways on the ground, staring out at the horizon. This wasn’t so bad, he supposed. The pain was agonizing, it felt like his insides were on fire, but there were worse places to die._

__No, this isn’t what you wanted . . . hell, it’s not what I wanted either. But it’s still better than being . . . <\i>_ _

__

__Arthur coughed, blood spattering onto the dirt in front of him._ _

__

___Fucking boring._ _ _


	16. 20 Men Had Made a Slip

Morgana felt something in her die when she saw her son fall to the ground as if hit by a great wave. She ran to his body, crouching by it. 

She screamed and screamed until her throat was raw. 

“MY CHILD! DEAR GOD! MY POOR BABY BOY!” she shrieked, stroking his hair and clutching him in her arms. 

He’d stopped bleeding as his heart had stopped beating and a puddle of red lay on the ground surrounding mother and son. 

Tears wouldn’t fall from her eyes, for she was beyond tears. Mordred was all she had, and now he was gone. She remembered holding him as an infant, she remembered comforting him from his very first nightmare when he was barely old enough to talk, she remembered every moment the boy had cried in her arms or played with her. 

She remembered when he’d taken a liking to Kara . . . and she’d been afraid for him. She just didn’t want his heart to break . . . but now his heart was not only broken but as was his body. 

And Morgana realized she had caused this. 

It wasn’t worth it. Revenge wasn’t worth her baby boy. Nothing would be. She started to feel . . . panic as she realized she would never feel complete, never again without him. She’d never get to hold him after a nightmare again and feel him breathe against her chest. Never get to hear him laugh or watch him work or play. 

And Morgana screamed again as she realized this. A high, piercing gutteral sound of sheer devastation. 

_My child, my child, my poor, poor child . . . should I never have brought you into this world? You died so badly, felt so much pain and I will never feel the same . . . who benefited from this?_

____________________________________________________________________________

In one horrible instant all of Merlin’s worst fears were confirmed. Fears he’d had for Arthur for years. Since they’d become partners first, practically. 

After Arthur fell, he’d ran to him, pressing his fingers to the spot beneath his jaw, testing to see if he still had a pulse. For a while he did, but it was weak. Merlin had torn off his coat and pressed it to the wound on the ranger’s stomach. 

“Please, Arthur, don’t leave me, oh my God, I don’t know what I’ll do without you!” 

“I’m sorry . . .” When Arthur responded, Merlin felt a small, foolish glimmer of hope. 

“You can’t die. I can’t lose you,” Merlin told him, holding back sobs. 

“I’m gonna die, whether I can or not,” he replied dryly, laughing a bit which made him cough blood onto Merlin’s chest. 

“I’m not strong enough for this.” 

“Yeah . . . you are. I-I don’t say this enough-” Arthur said, weakly, reaching out to touch the side of Merlin’s head. “I’m proud of you.” 

Then Arthur’s weak, fluttering pulse stopped. It beat its last beat. His eyes closed and he died, taking Merlin’s spirit with him. 

Merlin stayed there, frozen for a while, before he started sobbing. He heard Le Fay grieving her son in the distance . . . he’d been right, he realized bitterly.They both lost something they cared about and gained absolutely nothing.


	17. 21 Would Be the Ranger

The sun set on the grieving mother and grieving lover. 

Once Merlin had the strength, he pulled himself up off the ground and lifted Arthur’s corpse up, carrying the dead weight with him into the wilderness. He carried him out past Camlann’s borders by the dead birch tree line. 

Merlin unclipped a knife from his thigh and cut branch after dry, brittle branch off of those birches. He began to make a pile with them, a carefully constructed rectangle of wood, a grim and crude monument of twigs. It took him hours, but once he was satisfied, he hoisted his partner’s lifeless form off of the ground once more and laid him across the branches. 

Merlin gave Arthur a ranger funeral. He lit a match and dropped it onto his floral memorial. The branches at once became ablaze, washing the surrounding area with harsh, red light. Merlin stood and watched the fire burn away the body he had once held in his arms night after night, hands clasped behind his back. He once again began to weep. 

Arthur was . . . air to Merlin. More important than life itself. And now he was going to have to find a way to live without him. 

_My dear Arthur, what can I say at your grave?_ Merlin thought desperately as he let out gasping sobs. _I’m sorry we hurt each other. That’s what I can say. I will not hurt the next one. Whoever he may be. That’s because of you. We . . . made each other better men, I hope. I at least know you’ve done that for me._

Tomorrow, Merlin would think of vengeance, just as Mordred had done for Kara, but tonight he would allow himself time to grieve. 

______________________________________________________________________________

Morgana carried the stiff, frigid body of her son into his childhood home, the home she’d had built for him, because she wanted him to have somewhere with lots of space he could run around in. Everything in this house reminded her of him. She passed a doorway with a row of notches lining it to mark his growth throughout his childhood and adolescence. It made her heart hurt. 

Entering her office, she laid Mordred on the couch against the wall. She couldn’t bury him . . . for a moment she’d like to pretend that he had drank a bit too much while making merry and collapsed onto the couch in her office again. Even if that was far from the truth. 

Morgana ran her hand through his ebony curls. They really were beautiful curls . . . perfectly natural as well. She remembered helping him take care of them when he was younger. He would fuss as she’d hold his shoulders in front of the bathroom mirror. 

He was remarkably cold right now, and his head shifted in a rigid, slightly unnatural way when she touched his scalp. Everything about him was a reminder that he was . . . dead. 

This wasn’t Mordred, it was a corpse in her home. Soon, it would begin to rot under the dark clothes he was dressed in. This wasn’t her baby. Her baby had evaporated from this shell like smoke from a match leaving nothing but this icy, entropic carcass. 

She was bitter as she realized this, and she turned and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the shelf in her office. She popped the cork off and poured it onto the floor, on the walls, on the cadaver that lay paralyzed on the couch, on the stairs outside her office, and when the bottle was empty she grabbed another one. 

Slowly, Morgana poured out bottle after bottle of whiskey, rum, brandy, on every surface of this house, the house she’d built for her late child. When at last it was soaked and smelled of nothing but alcohol, she stepped outside, lit a match, and set her house on fire, with Mordred’s body inside of it. 

She stood there and watched it burn and felt a bit . . . comforted now. Not completely. Mordred was still dead. But she was destroying what most strongly reminded her of him. And that soothed her. 

The mother knew there wasn’t going to be anything after him. She probably should have let herself burn with his form . . . but what did it matter when Merlin would come for his revenge soon anyway? What did it matter when she would let him? She knew that.

Morgana lit another match and held it to the end of a cigarette, slowly smoking it as she watched her house burn to ashes. She had once been so proud of what she’d built here. 

What was to come of this town when she died or left to wander and mourn and self destruct? She didn’t know. Maybe someone more capable than her would take it. She always saw Mordred doing that job. 

“Oh, Mordred . . . Mama’s sorry.” She breathed and smoke followed her words. 

Words that had been spoken to her son so many times before.


	18. With the Big Iron on His Hip . . . Big Iron

The sun rose on two mourners by piles of ash. Merlin woke up to the sun’s light . . . he’d at some point collapsed in the dust last night. By his side was the heap of ashes that was once Arthur’s body . . . within that heap lay a piece of steel. 

Slowly, Merlin stood up and reached inside of the ash, pulling the object out. It was Arthur’s pistol, still marvelously intact. It had the row of notches across the barrel he’d worked hard to build up over the years. 

Yes, the ranger had been a good shot. Maybe if he had just been a slightly better one, he would be alive right now. 

Merlin pocketed the gun. Arthur would have probably wanted him to have it anyway. Then he picked his hat off the ground and dried his tears. Now, he only had room in his heart for revenge. 

______________________________________________________________________________

Morgana hadn’t slept at all that night. She didn’t sleep at all the night Mordred was born either. It had been a long and hard birth, one that it didn’t look like either of them would survive, and then when it was over, she could only pay attention to the tiny infant in her arms. He’d been extremely underweight . . . born prematurely. 

So, it’s only as well that she didn’t sleep the night he died. 

The sight in front of her was a sad one. There were crumbling boards sticking up out of the still-glowing embers. Random pieces of scorched jewelry and anything that wasn’t flammable were embedded in the ash. She looked for a sign of Mordred’s body in the mess but could find none. It looked like Goddamn pompeii. 

Morgana turned away from the ruin and froze.

_Click._

She heard a gun cock at her back as she faced the sun. 

“I was wondering when you’d stop by . . .” said the woman, not turning around. 

“You know this is the only fair way to resolve this, Le Fay,” the deceased ranger’s partner said. 

“. . . quite. You know, I welcome it. With my son dead, there’s nothing left for me. Here or anywhere.” 

“I don’t care. I really don’t. I still . . . don’t understand. None of this was worth it.” Merlin sounded emotional, his voice broken, raised and insistent. 

“. . . no. I don’t think it was,” she agreed. 

When he still didn’t shoot right away, she continued, “You know . . . I never stopped being proud of him. My son. Regardless of what kind of a mother you think me.” 

“. . . I’m no longer concerned about what kind of a mother you are. I only care that you ensured the death of the man I love. Have you any idea what that feels like?” he asked. 

No . . . Morgana would hardly say she loved Mordred’s father, Alvarr. Hell, she was the one who’d ridden herself of the man. She would hardly say she loved Cenred, the man who’d been her sheriff before Mordred was old enough either. But, there had been a few women she still remembered despite never quite getting the chance . . . 

“No. I don’t,” Morgana confirmed. 

Merlin took a step closer, the dust and ash crunching beneath his boots. 

“You could never do what Mordred did,” she explained, sensing the boy’s hesitance. 

“That’s true, I suppose,” Merlin said, as the barrel of the colt he held in his hand touched Morgana’s back. “I’m not about to die in the process.”

And with a deafening bang the gun went off. For Morgana, it was almost instant. She felt the heat first, then the pain of lead being mercilessly injected into her body, then the impact as she collapsed. All of this in one instant before her mind went black and shut down. 

And so was the end of Madam Morgana Le Fay.

______________________________________________________________________________

The mother’s corpse looked freakishly beautiful as it lay cold on the desert floor, her sheen of curls draped around her shoulders, sand clinging to it. Her blue eyes were frozen open, and they almost glowed in the sun’s rays.

The atmosphere was dead silent, not one citizen of Camlann was working, not even a bird was calling. Wind blew lightly, drifting Merlin’s bangs across his field of vision, and the sun beat down on him. 

Merlin felt . . . almost numb. He didn’t break down after killing her, nor did he feel the instant relief revenge was supposed to make a heartbroken man feel. This was no true resolve. He supposed he would never get that. 

The resolve was Morgana’s, though. She could rest knowing she had completed her mission and would join her son now, because surely, wherever they went, it would be the same place, Merlin figured. 

But Merlin wasn’t an overly religious person anyway. For all he knew, there was no afterlife and he had merely surrendered the woman to the glory of the void. The purity of a lack of self. 

With a little sigh, the ranger clipped the pistol back onto his belt, and after that, he went and sought out Arthur’s horse. 

After whispering a few calming words to the poor, neglected mare, he tacked her, mounted her, bringing his own horse with them on a lead, and rode out, finally leaving Camlann once and for all. 

Good riddance, he thought, as he rode out past the row of dead birches. He hoped those who remained in the town would pick themselves back up now that their domineering leader was dead, their child sheriff dead as well. Maybe they’d find someone who cared about more than revenge to do Madam Le Fay’s job. Maybe her job wasn’t necessary at all. 

And these questions would never be answered for Merlin, because he was never coming back, that was for damn sure.

He supposed he would wander around for a while, thwarting crime when he saw it . . . picking up where Arthur left off. He’d try not to make as many enemies while doing it. 

_I’ll make you proud._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry if this broke your heart but if you really read all the way through I am so so grateful and I hope you liked it.


End file.
